Talent
by Saru Wolfe
Summary: Shattered Glass. A jet Eradicon wants to be a medic. He also really, really doesn't want Commander Starscream to know that.
1. Chapter 1

Brought on by my endless love of the troopers. In Shattered Glass, Eradicons are individuals who can hold rank and specialize beyond their alt mode.

* * *

><p>"I'm not leaving the Seekers ," Avi said for the fourth time.<p>

The other two remained unconvinced. "The doc's been complaining to Megatron about having no medical staff," Six pointed out stubbornly. "What're we supposed to think when he starts training you up?"

"You know who he should train up?" the third Seeker put in.

"No one asked you, Helix," Six muttered.

"The ground troopers," Helix continued anyway. He sounded confident, but Avi had just watched him check the corridor for anyone who could overhear him. "The Autobots are all over the ground. Even the tankers can't keep up with 'em. What they _don't_ have is the air."

Six's wings twitched irritably. "So?"

"So we need all the Seekers we can keep!"

Avi waved a hand between them. "I'm not leaving the Seekers," he reminded them. "I can do both."

"That's what you think now," Six retorted, "'til Knockout has you reassigned."

Six was right often enough that Avi paused, wavering. "Can he do that?"

"Officers are in charge," Helix pointed out.

"What about Commander Starscream?" Avi rallied. "Doesn't he outrank Knockout?"

That shut them up. The thing about being a Seeker was that you weren't just one of the Decepticons; you were one of _Starscream's_ Decepticons. And if Avi didn't want to be a medic, Starscream wasn't going to let any bot drag him off into medic duty.

But if he did want to be a medic... well, the commander would be pretty mad. He would probably understand, though. Probably.

Six and Helix exchanged a glance. "Still think he should use the grounders," Helix said.

As if on cue, the floor shook.

All three Seekers leaned over to check out the source of the vibrations. At the far end of the corridor, two tank Eradicons ambled along. There was barely enough room for them to walk side by side.

"Tankers inbound," Six prompted.

Helix picked up the joke immediately. "ETA?"

"Couple of teracycles."

"Watch out, they might catch up to us."

"No, we're standing still," Avi affirmed. "They couldn't catch up to us unless we were going backwards."

They snickered. Helix held up a hand ponderously as the tankers drew closer. "Whoa, I think I'm starting to rust though here."

Avi's laughter trailed off as he got a better look at the targets of their jokes. He couldn't see the other, but the tanker closer to them was Lieutenant Salvo, the commander of all tanker squadrons. Six was quick on the uptake, but Helix was still trying to stifle his laughter when the tankers came even with them.

"Hmm," Salvo said, looking them over. "What are you three up to?"

Avi pointed. "Helix was just saying that Knockout should conscript the tankers into medic positions."

"Traitor!" Helix called out as Salvo's arm landed atop his head.

"That so?" Salvo playfully allowed his full armor-plated weight to lean on the Seeker, who buckled and bent at the waist in an attempt to get the tanker's arm off him. "I think we'll leave that to you agile types."

"Traitor to the cause!" Helix yelled, swatting at the lieutenant's arm. Salvo let him up.

Salvo took one step forward and paused. "Speaking of," he started up, looking straight at Avi, "I heard you Seekers don't make bad medics. Tril here was telling me."

The other tanker leaned around, and this time Avi recognized him. The first time Avi had been called in to help with an actual emergency had been after a full-out Autobot attack on a mine, and there had been a lot of wounded. Tril's injuries had been minor, so Avi had been the one to patch him up.

Avi wasn't sure what the protocol was with a former patient. He waved hesitantly. That was enough for Tril, who waved back. Salvo nodded and moved on, Tril trailing along beside him.

When Avi looked back to his fellow Seekers, they were both staring at him. "I'm _not_," he protested before they could say anything, "leaving the Seekers!"


	2. Chapter 2

The display listed off malfunction after malfunction, all complex. A line image of a Cybertronian was lit up with blue at key points. The readout did not look promising. Avi studied every bit of it intently, aware that Knockout, arms folded, was watching him think.

One of Avi's wings dipped, but he didn't fidget. He knew what he saw. "It looks like an actuator problem."

"Not bad," Knockout commented. Avi straightened proudly. The medic smirked and held up a finger. "Ah-ah-ah. Don't start patting yourself on the back just yet. All you did was identify the issue. The real question is how you would—"

Two terrible things happened at once. The door to the med bay opened, and an all-too-familiar voice shouted, "Knockout!"

Commander Starscream _couldn't_ catch Avi here, not in the middle of training. He'd think Avi didn't want to be in the Seeker squadrons, or he'd want to know why he hadn't been told before. It would be a disaster. The only thing that saved Avi was the fact that the commander was still looking at the datapad he was holding up in one hand.

"You would not _believe_..."

Avi dove behind the nearest surgical berth.

"... the tedious surveillance duty that—what was that?"

"What _are_ you talking about?" Knockout asked smoothly as if there were nothing wrong at all.

Avi was squeezed behind the berth, limbs curled up and wings tucked down. He tried not to vent despite the spike of nervous energy.

"That noise." Starscream's footsteps drew toward the console, and Avi scooted quietly around the berth. "Don't tell me you didn't hear it."

"Your audio receptors must be on the fritz, Starscream. It _would_ explain why you're here after I asked you oh-so-politely not to barge into the med bay anymore."

Starscream scoffed. "Why, so I don't interrupt your important work in this time of crisis?" Avi could picture the commander staring pointedly around the practically empty med bay. "Like looking over old diagnostic files?"

Avi hoped that Starscream was busy looking at the console and darted for a small stack of energon crates. He only knew he had been right when there was no accusatory shout.

"Hmm." There was the click of a key and the descending tone of a closed screen: Knockout had taken down the file. "Since you're here, what's ruffled your feathers _this_ time?"

"I'm so glad you asked."

Avi pressed his wings as far down as they would go and peered over the crates. Knockout was leaning against the console and facing him, but Starscream had his back turned. Avi eased upright. The door was just a few steps away. He backed toward it slowly.

And then it hissed open.

Starscream only turned his head, but Avi felt like a targeting laser was on him. He froze in the middle of the doorway.

"What are you doing here?" the commander asked curiously.

"I just came in," Avi blurted out. "For repairs."

Starscream's wings snapped up in alarm. "Why? Are you injured?"

"No, sir! Commander. Sir." His improvised excuse came out rapid-fire. "I meant a standard physical exam."

Starscream had relaxed from his initial concern, but now his expression started toward confused. Avi noted with despair that Knockout, safely behind Starscream, was grinning broadly. Maybe he wasn't the officer to trust with a secret.

"But you're..." Avi pointed at Knockout but then hurriedly dropped his hand. "But you're busy. So."

Starscream tilted his head, a frown forming. Knockout struggled with silent laughter.

Avi turned on his heel and ran for it. "Bye," he called without looking back.

Being discreet was a lot harder than he'd thought.


	3. Chapter 3

"What do you_ mean_ Soundwave knows?" Avi demanded.

Axel clearly wasn't feeling the same alarm that Avi was. The grounder walked right past him to the next communications relay and started checking over it. "Look, this extra training—whatever you're doing behind your commander's back—it's happening on board the _Nemesis_, right?"

"Yeah," Avi admitted.

"Soundwave knows," Axel confirmed. "Take it from me. I hear a lot of what goes on on this ship, and I still don't know all the details of your med bay trips." He held up a finger. "And I don't care, so don't tell me. But Soundwave _does_ know."

And here Avi had thought that talking to one of the surveillance corps would be reassuring. At least Starscream didn't know yet, though anymore it seemed the commander was the _only_ one who didn't know that Avi was in serious training to be a medic. Maybe he shouldn't have come to Axel for sympathy. With Soundwave as a boss, what would _he_ know about having secrets?

Avi was only a little jealous of the grounder. As far as he knew, Axel had been one of the first Vehicons to request transfer, and he had settled right into surveillance and communications duties as if he'd been made for them. If he had any regrets, they certainly didn't show.

For the most part, anyway. "Frequency shift," he was saying, presumably to the readout he was peering at, since Avi was behind him and had no idea what he was talking about. "Every single time we change altitude. I keep _telling_ them we could just use an algorithm, but _no_, the navigation crew can't be bothered to help us set up a link. Who did this manual adjustment? Recoil? Is he _blind_?"

Avi hadn't realized that the altitude of the _Nemesis_ mattered to anyone but the fliers, but this wasn't exactly what he had come to talk about. "Do you think I should transfer?"

Axel fiddled with the relay a little more and stood back to look it over. "I think I need to go talk to whoever's at the helm," he decided. He hiked back past Avi toward the lift that went back down into the ship.

Avi followed him. "It's just—what if..."

Axel waved off his explanation. "The fact that you're here asking me about it makes it pretty clear that you want to."

It didn't help at all. Avi already knew he wanted to be a medic. That wasn't the part that was forcing him to hedge and worry over it. There was a moment of silence in the lift before Avi blurted out, "How did Breakdown take it? When you asked to serve somewhere else?"

"It doesn't matter. Breakdown isn't Starscream."

That was true. Breakdown, Avi knew, would be proud of him. Breakdown was fine with whatever they did, so long as they stayed out of trouble. But Starscream... what if Starscream was _disappointed_? Just imagining it made Avi's wings drop sharply.

"You Seekers are too uppity," Axel continued. "We're not on different teams. We're all _Decepticons_."

"I know that," Avi murmured.

"Yeah? Then stop acting like swapping to the medical division is working for the enemy." Axel folded his arms with the certainty of experience. "The best thing you can do for _all_ of us is do what you do best."

"Oh. Uh..."

The lift stopped. Avi was glad he hadn't formulated a response, because when the doors opened, Soundwave was on the other side of them. The lieutenant looked up from the console he was working at. Avi tried to be still and unobtrusive; in any case, Soundwave's gaze passed right over him. Axel, on the other hand, strode forward, already talking.

"Sir, our readings are going to continue to be off unless we set up a program to adjust the relays depending on the ship's position. The program should be no problem, it's just getting the data stream from navigation."

Soundwave watched Axel as he approached. So did Avi, who was fascinated by the sight of someone barging into a room and talking _at_ Soundwave.

"I can put together a coding team and get it taken care of, but it would speed things up if navigation knew your authority was behind it, sir."

Soundwave nodded once.

"All right." Axel nodded back and kept going. Avi realized he was still in the lift and hurried to follow.

Once they were out in the corridor, Avi commented appreciatively, "Wow."

Axel started so slightly that Avi almost didn't catch it. "Well... I know what I'm doing," he said, not quite in his usual matter-of-fact tone.

Avi couldn't argue with that. And Axel seemed happy, in his own weird, fast-lane way. Maybe Avi should just—

That was precisely when Avi realized what time it was. "Oh, _scrap_—I have to go." He started sprinting for the med bay, then hesitated. "Could you not tell anyone about this?"

Axel shrugged. "Don't worry. No one will say anything."

Avi waved his thanks and jogged on. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that the surveillance corps knew. Soundwave's people would be discreet. And in the meantime, Avi could figure out what to do about all this.

"If Starscream finds out," Axel continued from behind him, "it'll be because you're incredibly obvious."

Then again, maybe Axel hadn't been the one to talk to.


End file.
